Chennai Bloggers Meet was held at GRT Convention Centre on March 20th, saturday, 2010. Two hundered bloggers participated. This Meet was organised by Indiblogger.in.

Let me first review the meet and my honest opinion?

When I got the invite mail from Indibloggers.in for chennai bloggers meet, i was pleasantly surprised and intrigued enough to register immediately! Unfortunately, on that same day, i had a luncheon meeting with my European client [I'm an Architect and specilise in European Interiors]. I hurried through that meeting in such a way that my client couldn't resist asking 'where is the fire'? I explained and he got all curious abt how we go abt such things here and ready to tag along with me. But, I was not sure whether unexpected and unregistered people, let alone an European guest, are allowed..since this was my first [official] bloggers meet.

When I entered, there were only 10-12 people there. Then bloggers started coming and within 5 minutes the hall was full.

All greeted with welcome drink.

Earlier, i spotted this lady [Tulasi] and said hi. From that second on, it was like flowing with a forceful tide! After registering our ID, we sat together to watch the proceedings. After the welcome address,
the "Black Cat's" team played Hitler video with funny dialogue makeover. It was hilarious and i really enjoyed that.

But what she meant by sontha veedu was 'own domain name'! God, now u ppl know why i felt like i was in a maze! Ofcourse she enjoyed my confusion verymuch! People like Tulsi madam are rare with uninhibited friendliness and genuine warmth. She is the personification of "old world charm"!

Then came the much coveted  '30 seconds fame'.

Awwww..all my dreams on basking in limelight [what if it is only for 30 seconds, who cares!] crashed becaus the minute i said 'I'm Umbrella', the guy [satyanarain] who was sitting on the row behind said, 'oh.. u r that umbrella..who called me Nithyananda?"and I got distracted and passed the mike to the next person without introducing myself properly! what a shame!
fame..fame ..where art tho....? :):)

After a few names, the rest just flew over my head. I recognised some of the names whose blogs i read after registering for the meet.

I loved the tweet part very much. Enjoyed it like anything. It was awesome watching and gauging the mood change of the mass through their tweets!

Then came the real interactive session part. With our chart hanging on our behind  and asking people to write something on it was pure fun. Some Tamil bloggers asked me to write in Tamil. I dont know whether i can but without trying, it's not fair to say no. So, it's sweet of you guys to suggest that and i'll definitely try it!

I remember some .. Rhumjum, Moulee, Gomathi Reddy, Aarti, Ram, Ram N, Nila Raseegan, Kalyan, Renie [ the only person i know from the Black cat's team!] web snacker, teen dudes and I remember most of the faces. That elfin-faced gal, one mechanical engineer, one vada-sambhar guy, Marine but dont remember their names!

I was happy to see Rahul Jain and Sathyanarain [the infamous Nithyananda!] in person.

Out of that total 200, women bloggers didnt even meet out the necessary 33% quota! still a lonnnng way to go..gals! Anyway, meeting fellow women bloggers was one oh-so-nice experience for me!

I met Gunal, who said he knew me from Ibibo! It's really a pleasant surprise to know that people recognise you in person through the blogs and social networking. Thank you Gunal.

I really didnt like going back to my seat. It was more fun moving around, inter-acting with each other but rules r rules!

Even though we dutifully listened to Ramesh's [Univercell] talk, we never got our hands on one of those mobiles! pity!

Then the meet reached the serious part. Traditional media vs bloggers, interview with a journalist-cum-blogger Mr. Balabarathy.

Balabarathy insisted on speaking only in Tamil. Those who dont speak Tamil went 'blink..blink'! From then on it was all blah blah. People lost interest and it came clearly thru their tweets! :):)

Then the much awaited end came and everyone moved like tsunami attacked the buffet tables with vengence!

Being a veggie, I mourned for that poor chicken in those sandwiches! Rasamalai, cheese cutlet and Mango icecream, Yummylicioussss!!

The black T was nice and later i found out that it was not only nice..but also power packed!

Power packed???? details come in the later part of this post..

I thank Indibloggers team for arranging this meet in such a nice, well organised manner. Because of them..i got a nice friend Tulsi and got to meet many like minded people.

Now the honest opinion:

It's really a big task arranging a meet and gathering ppl..who dont belong to any organised club or anything. By seeing Kingfisher and Univercell offering to sponsor such meets itself speak volumes about the importance of bloggers and the blogging world!

But traditional media is different. Be it print media or electronic, visual media, those journalists do their jobs for money. They get paid for their efforts. It's their paid job. Biased reports are unavoidable and part and parcel of every report! Most of the time it turns out to be personally vengeful or gainful or politically influenced!

It's us, Bloggers who are unbiased, who report things in their true colors. We are the voice of common man! We are the voice of true democracy..democracy in it's pureset sense! We have nothing to lose or gain personally through our blogs. Only selfless things bring out the truth, and Blogging is one such thing!

So, we are above and beyond any traditional journalists, and way too different. We are totally, entirely, completely a different genre. So, why we had that discussion with a traditional journalist Mr. Balabarathi? Why that so called interview by those two girls shilpa and NDTV gal?

If we r to travel in the same path of journalists, why write blogs?
There are many things need to be clarified, like what to write and what NOT to write, is there any restrictions on blogger in his freedom of expression,

Blogging world  and bloggers are garnering unprecedented attention from all sides. World started recognising the value of blogs and it's wide reach.

So, instead of short selling ourselves to these traditional media persons, we should concentrate on establishing this blogging world and bloggers as a powerful organisation with all the legal backing. For that, we need to form a legally binding club or establish some kind of organisation.

Why we didnt spend our valubale time on discussing this important issues? With 200 bloggers, it was a golden opportunity and we missed it, wasted it on traditional media and marketing! Marketing automatically follows when success is attained. We can make us, the bloggers, a powerful voice of democracy only through a formal, legally binding organisation!

I personally found out how powerful we bloggers are!

I was curious to know people's reaction on seeing my 'blogger Tee'. [curious minds write great blogs believe me!hehe]

On sunday, I wore it to a 'Theme Restaurant' nearby my place..

I really was not prepared for the amount of attention and respect it got! The minute, the manager saw my T, he was full of questions about blogging. He said it's an honour to have a blogger and lunch was on house!

Was i surprised? I was knocked for six, man!

Of course i insisted on paying the bill much to the amusement of my friends! At the moment, I realised the power of blogging and the power of 'us'..the bloggers!

So, let's not waste anymore time and start a club or something before some political party pounce on this and exploit it to their own gain. So far, our bloggers' world is unblemished and let's try to keep it that way!  

Here is the link for some snaps of the bloggers meet

http://photos.ibibo.com/album/472438/1/chennai-bloggers-meet-mar202010

Link for that hilarious Hitler video

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